“We are welcoming her with open arms,” Betty Liu, executive vice chairwoman of the exchange, told The New York Times Monday.

“We see [in her] our daughters, mothers, nieces,” she said at Monday’s unveiling event, according to the BBC. “She represents potential, progress and hope, but also all the women who have fought for equality before us.”

“She is a powerful symbol of the need for change at the highest levels of corporate America—and she will become a durable part of our city’s civic life,” he previously said in a statement. “This move to a new location will improve access for visitors and ensure that her message and impact continues to be heard.”

Financial services company State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) originally commissioned artist Kristen Visbal to make the statue in 2017, the BBC reported.

“Our hope is that by moving closer to the NYSE [Fearless Girl] will inspire more companies to take action,” Cyrus Taraporevala, SSGAs president and CEO, previously told CNN. SSGA did not immediately respond to Newsweek‘s request for comment.

Fearless Girl’s corporate origins are not without controversy: a disappointment for many who had hoped the statue was a feminist statement independent of the firms that dominate Wall Street.

SSGA themselves became mired in a gender pay scandal when the Department of Labor accused the firm of paying some 300 female executives less than their male colleagues. SSGA—which denied the allegations, the BBC reported—agreed to fork out $5 million in a settlement.

In spite of these controversies, the statue continues to find praise among tourists and locals alike. As Democrat Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said at the unveiling: “She says in one image all that advocates can say in pages and pages of arguments and statistics.”

Originally Posted
at
Newsweek on December 11, 2018 by Katherine Hignett.